Tulips, by Magda Alberts

Someone gave me some tulips one day
And at first sight I wanted to say
These were picked oh much too soon,
So soon that they will never bloom.
They seemed to be just leaves all green
With not a flower in between.
Deep down the buds were closed so tight
That they were almost out of sight
There was just a slight lilac mist to be seen
Which the leaves did their best from our gaze to screen.

Such a pity these were so early picked, I thought,
Such a pity that too soon they were bought.
But I was oh so very wrong.
So tulips, here to you is my song:
…—ooo—…

I watched you every day with care
And soon I did begin to dare
To hope that you would still unfold
To show your beauty as yet untold.

You drank oh so very much water
Like you were really water’s daughter.
But your life hasn’t been a natural one
Grown under glass and not out in the sun
Cut so soon, then a long flight in the cold
With alien air pressure, a contrast untold.
Yet once in the vase you continued to grow
You began to regain an inner glow
Your buds that were so hidden and tight
began to swell and came into sight,
Their colour unfolded just like a swan
That very gently glides along.

Then at last in your full glory you stood
And now admire you properly I could.

Then slowly your stems began to bend
It was the start of the downward trend
Your blooms which so proudly reached for the sun
Now humbly bent down to whence you had come
Going back with grace to rejoin the earth
The self same earth that gave you birth.
In their own good time your petals they fell
Our flowering is over, is what they tell.
Yet you did not fret, you did not cry,
You did not hesitate to die
You were not at all in turmoil
Your leaves and flowers just went back to the soil
Renewing, enriching it for the future
To enable it further life to nurture
And your essence just moved to eternal space
Which you surely enriched with your tulip grace.

So thank you, dear tulips, for showing the way
To grow, flourish, flower, and then say
Without bother or fuss, now it’s time to go
To go to the place which no one can know
But which holds the promise of further life
Perhaps it will be a life with less strife.
…—ooo— …

And all that we here on earth can do
Is to follow the tulips on their way through
Just to go with that eternal circular flow
To enjoy and enhance that ethereal glow
That we can sometimes sense, but cannot yet know.